


Cold Toes

by thegirlwhoactually



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alfred’s babies, Hurt/Comfort, Sick!Bruce, Sickfic, sorry no Damian, the boys are pure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwhoactually/pseuds/thegirlwhoactually
Summary: Bruce unexpectedly falls ill and tries to deny himself the comfort of family.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 124





	Cold Toes

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for stopping and reading this. I’m trying to get back into the swing of writing after the loss of my grandfather by writing short stories. If you have read another one of my works before- thank you, I will be working on them again in the future, but for now I need a break and something new. If you are new to my writing, thank you for joining me, and I hope to hear from you in the comments section. :)

Bruce first noticed something was wrong when his breath started coming in short gasps as he ran across the rooftops of Gotham, hot on the trail of Black Mask’s latest crime spree. His lungs felt heavier, but he shook it off, chalked it up to the rain that was pouring around him in torrents in the late December storm Gotham was being slammed by. He didn’t think of it again, even as a solitary cough forced its way out while he grappled up to the top of the GCPD. 

The next time Bruce noticed anything was off was when he shook hands with the Commissioner and suddenly his bones ached under Gordon’s grip and spread up his arm and across his back before he could pull away. Perhaps he had been too hasty to plunge off that building... His grappling hook had pulled him up hard and fast... He would take an ice bath tonight and a few Tylenol. He would be fine. 

Bruce was anything but fine. It was three in the morning and he was laying in his bed with a stuffed nose, burning skin, and ice in his bones. Every breath rattled and his skin shone with sweat. A pile of tissues lay scattered around him on his bed, his nightshirt and sheets damp with sweat and wrinkled from his tossing and turning. Bruce had considered calling for Alfred, but Bruce had stopped himself. He was a thirty year old man, and Alfred was getting older. There was no reason he should be waking the man in the middle of the night. Bruce has fought and taken down Gotham’s strongest criminals, he didn’t need his butler to tuck him into bed. 

But oh, how he wanted so badly to pretend he was little again. The last time he had been sick had been over a decade ago, long before he left to join the League of Assassins, and the last time Alfred had truly babied Bruce. Now Bruce had three sons of his own that Alfred helped look after. 

Another cough ripped through his chest before he could muffle it in his pillow, echoing through the manor like a gunshot. He winced and tried to stifle it, but that only seemed to make the catch worse. He ripped himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the dizziness that followed. The coughing fit escalated, ripping through him and leaving no room to breathe. Bruce felt his stomach clench as the coughing continued. His lungs burned with the need for real oxygen, not the short bursts in between the violent contractions in his lungs. His eyes burned with tears from the strain of his coughs. A sudden hand on his back had Bruce startling away from the touch, but the hand followed, joined by another on his knee as the bed dipped under someone’s weight. 

As the hand rubbed his back soothingly, Bruce slowly regained control over his compromised lungs, and as the threat of more coughing trickled away, he turned to see who had joined him. Alfred sat on the edge of the bed, night shirt and cap rumpled from the older man’s disrupted sleep. 

“Oh, my dear boy, why didn’t you say something?” The concern in Alfred’s voice was like a blow to Bruce’s heart. 

“Go back to sleep, Alfred, I’ll be alright,” Alfred was already pulling Bruce’s arms up into the air, pulling the damp shirt off of his too-hot skin. A new shirt quickly replaced the soiled one, and Bruce couldn’t help the sigh that left his tired lips. Embarrassment should have made his cheeks hot, but the fever had already burned away any pride he may have had left. Alfred pushed Bruce back down onto his pillows when a soft knock sounded at his door. It swung open soundlessly, and three dark heads poked into the room. 

“Is he okay, Al?” Dick, his eldest son asked, hands gently resting on Jason and Tim’s shoulders. Each had a pinched, worried look on their faces and Bruce’s heart clenched at the sight. Hardly anything shook his boys anymore-something he blamed himself for, they were so young- so to see them so worried now... Bruce saw his hand reach out to them before he realized what he was doing. Tim was the first to reach his bed, crawling in he quickly pressed himself against Bruce’s side. Bruce squeezed his eyes tight against the threat of tears at the display of trust from Tim. The need for comfort included Jason and Dick as well, apparently, as he quickly found his bed filled with his adopted family, pressed in at all sides. Little fingers clenched in his shirt, cold toes finding their way against his legs, dark hair tickling his face- Bruce ignored it all and held his boys close, at least for a little while. 

Alfred watched the scene with barely concealed love, warmth radiating from his soft smile and pulling a smaller, matching one from Bruce. A blanket was pulled from the chair next to the fire, blessedly thinner than his duvet on the bed, and spread over the four. Bruce allowed his eyes to flutter shut, smile still tugging at his lips. He may be too old to be read bedtime stories, but he was never too old to be cared for by his family.


End file.
